Descending before landing

Yesterday we had our first meeting with what will be our home base and offices. We occupy the first floor of a building on Cordova Street. The building is located in the absolute poorest neighborhood I Vancouver. This become apparent to us when one of VC one million homeless people decided to camp out next to our entrance. Furthermore the area has the largest concentration of HIV and Hepatitis C in North America.

The building is called the Stanley hotel and was at some point in the distant past, a decent hotel. The building is owned by the province, but pending a plan of what do to with it, has been left decaying for many years. In short our floor looked like shit.


The challenge, seeing as KaosPilotes don’t have the privilege of calling anything a problem, is for us to get the place presentable before Tuesday. The budged is nothing worth mentioning so we started doing what be do best, raising funds (begging, borrowing & stealing). The neighborhood is friendly though and we ended up getting a lot of stuff that will come in handy. We even have an Army Navy Shop right across the street. Spread out on three floors you can get anything from plumbing to women’s shoes.


But all work and no play makes you grumpy and bitter. Taking that into consideration we have somehow found the time to check out a few of the local bars. A funny experience was forcing our Irish team manager to come with us to an “Irish” bar. His national pride nearly coma in the way of the endeavor, but me managed to persuade him. Though to out disappointment there were neither leper cons nor river dancing there.

Who knew it would be the day of days?

A new day in the City of Rain, as I now know Vancouver is called by the locals. The jetlag is forcing into the role as an early bird, which is profoundly against my nature. I’m sure anyone that knows me or has met me before lunch is struggling to believe that I wake up before noon, but it’s a fact. 06.00 today. Jesus.

The plan today is to defy the rain and check out china town. Vancouver has a huge amount of Chinese immigrants, originating all the way back from when they built the railroad here. It seems like every other person you see on the street is Asian, looking forward to check out their turf in on of the world’s biggest china towns.


Last night, after having a beer with a bunch of people from the team, the Swedish firecracker and me accidentally went to a burger place called Dennys. Denny’s looks like something out of a tarantino movie and gives you the vibe that any second some desperado will come storming though the door, guns blazing with a vengeance. Our waiter, Helmut (!), did a hell of a job keeping up appearances for us and the couple celebrating Valentines Day in the both next to us. The really funny part though was that the food believe it or not was great. Vesla (Sweden’s pride an joy) ate a French toast that could make you believe in god and I had a serious burger that required a machete to eat.

The day of days started early.

Arriving in Vancouver yesterday, I am now dealing with the aftermath of jetlag, franticly trying to remember how much Canadian dollars are worth and enjoying your new gorgeous apartment in the middle of downtown Vancouver.

After leaving our luggage at the apartment last night P and me went on a small recon trip in the neighborhood. We landed at a semi-shady bar dinking pitchers of beer and eating ridiculously huge bowls of nachos. We already feel like we belong on the American continent.

Waking up at 05.00 (!) today I realized that jetlag can be a pain in the ass, but on the bright side I’ve never woke up that early on my own. Ever. Guess it’s a good thing to take advantage of the day, getting a head start on enjoying the City of Glass.